At age eight, he moved with his family to the town of Amble, where his father had secured a position as a check weighman.

His father, a native of Lithuania Adolph Bonifatsievich Burba, was a weighman at the Yenakievo Railway Station.

He was awarded on behalf of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II a silver pocket watches with an engraving "To the best weighman of Russia".

From 1876-1906 he worked at the Shireoaks Company's Southgate Pit from 1880 as check-weighman, a representative elected by coal miners to check the findings of the mine owner's weighman where miners are paid by the weight of coal mined.

I took one job as a check weighman as I thought I'd get free meat from it, but instead I nearly got sacked from picking up three pig's kidneys from the floor that were covered in sawdust, to take home and cook up for the cat.